Interview for BIZ magazine (September 2019)

When marketing happens in real time, with 4-5 campaigns a day, you need to understand trends, use influencers and be present at the coolest events, says Sergiu Mircea, Marketing and Communications Director at Banca Transilvania. All to make banking products and services “fashionable”.

What challenges has the evolution of technology brought to marketing in banking?

I think it’s hard today to talk about marketing by category, because we’re in a globalized market. Until recently you could talk about bank marketing because you were operating in a sort of monopoly, competing with other banks. You were almost like a utilities provider, and you could say things were pretty boring. Now it seems you have competitors you don’t even know. Our view at BT is that banking products need to be fashionable, because today you can bank with just your phone — you have Apple Pay or BT Pay on your phone and you don’t even need a card. You hardly go to the branch anymore, and our generation — not to mention the ones coming after us — wants their bank, or whoever they make payments with, to be fashionable.

We care a lot about our phones, invest in them, replace them quite often, buy apps and want them to be cool. We have very high expectations of banks and we see that they want to have on-trend products. Bank brands that are riding the wave are fashionable; they move into the consumer-goods space — you want to show you understand trends, that you use influencers, that you’re at the coolest events. But if I had to choose between “the old way of doing things” and “the new way of doing things”, I don’t know whether the old way would still be professionally satisfying for me and my colleagues.

Clearly, things have changed because technology has changed how customers see and feel brands. Even if you’re a bank, you can no longer say you’re in a regulated industry where the customer comes only for security.

How does technology help you in your interactions with customers?

What’s influenced us most is how technology has changed customers’ expectations and behavior. Social media has changed everything. I remember that 5-6 years ago companies planned at the start of the year for 4-5 campaigns. You’d prepare the campaign for two months, launch it and then customers would come. And many companies still do that. We no longer have 4-5 campaigns a year, but 4-5 campaigns a day. Often the campaigns for a given day are set that very morning.

Technology is what makes this possible; you just need to align things internally and go on Facebook, Instagram or on the radio, and the impact is incredible. Technology has changed people’s mindset — from 4-5 campaigns a year to 20 campaigns a week, with an extremely vibrant pace. You come into the office in the morning and you don’t know how the day will end, because in competitive fields a competitor throws down the gauntlet, you pick it up, and by the end of the day things can evolve in countless directions. Everything is much more dynamic.

How do you manage to run 4-5 campaigns a day?

It sounds simple, but to be able to run a lot of tactical campaigns, the whole company has to be built around that mindset. You need in-house designers, copywriters; you need to structure the department like an agency so you can move very fast. And then you need empowerment. People in the bank have to see that this kind of campaign delivers results and be open when you suggest changing departments that may be rather static, and give you support for a campaign where you lower the price of a product. Or when you run a campaign in which those who make transactions within a certain time slot enjoy certain benefits. Behind the campaigns are the departments that support you.

How long did it take you to build this setup?

Years. At first you get a taste for it and see you no longer have an appetite for big campaigns. It happened over the course of a few years. And that set us apart and helped us succeed in certain segments — the urban environment, in large and very large cities — because we had this setup ready. You need experienced people who can make decisions on their own, because if everything waits on a single person’s decision, you can’t run this kind of campaign. It happens that I don’t even know about some of the campaigns run in the department, because people know what they have to do and do it. Technology helps you run the campaigns, but the mindset of the people you work with is crucial. External events can pop up over the weekend. Maybe you support an athlete and he or she qualifies or wins a competition, and your whole weekend changes because you have to set a new campaign in motion.

What’s the most challenging campaign you’ve developed at BT?

I think the toughest was the bank’s rebrand, almost three years ago. A visual rebrand that came with a repositioning campaign where we wanted to show that BT stands for values beyond day-to-day commercial activity — supporting entrepreneurship, financing the economy. We’ve had other big campaigns, but I think this was the most important.

What plans do you have for the period ahead?

The bank has made significant progress with digitalization; I think we’re among the 2-3 most advanced banks in this area. For the past 2-3 months I’ve only been leaving the house with my phone; I don’t take my wallet with me. We already have a good user experience; the next step is launching NEO, a different brand, built almost outside the bank, with a distinct visual identity. It’s a bigger step, as part of a digitalization strategy. At the same time, last year we launched a campaign with Simona Halep, in the same vein — the bank’s values. We wanted it to be a campaign for Romania and we launched it on December 1, the Centennial — Let’s get to work, Romania! And, noblesse oblige, we’ll have a follow-up at least as strong. We want to pass on a bit of optimism to Romanians.